Saturday, April 3, 2010

As Hollywood’s hottest property, Robert Pattinson doesn’t need to sit around waiting for the phone to ring.

Sifting through a mountain of scripts and trying to navigate a satisfying career path, while everyone wants a piece of him, will be a more familiar scenario.

With the whole world watching his every move, how did the star of the Twilight films decide to follow the smash hit New Moon with humble independent movie Remember Me?

Fairly easily, it turns out.

“I never like anything, so it’s quite easy to decide what to do,” he admits, candidly.

“I’ve never felt any pressure to do anything, particularly. Even when we were shooting it I never thought about the box office.”

It may be far from his mind, but Pattinson, known as R-Patz to his adoring fans, is certainly box office-friendly. Propelled to stardom as the pale and mysterious vampire Edward Cullen, he now inspires hysteria whenever he steps out in public.

Today is no exception, and journalists preparing to grill him about his latest release have had to wait patiently as he works the red carpet outside the film’s premiere in London’s Leicester Square, signing autograph after autograph for overwhelmed fans.

In person, he is undeniably good looking, with a striking bone structure, tousled hair and cheeks decidedly rosier than those of his vampire alter ego.

He is also rather self-deprecating, and has a tendency to backtrack and correct himself while he’s speaking. Even so, he seems to know his own mind when it comes to career choices.

“I had read tonnes and tonnes of scripts over the summer after I did Twilight, I mean hundreds, and everything seemed exactly the same.

“But this one, the way the dialogue was written, it just seemed much more naturalistic than most things,” he says.

“It’s not really a feel-good movie. They don’t make movies like it anymore, I think that’s how I kind of choose stuff, that’s the only criteria I have. There seems to be a gap in the market for something and I just try and do that.”

Remember Me is about as far away as you can get from the fantastical world of vampires and werewolves that Pattinson is best known for.

Set in New York, it stars the 23-year-old as Tyler Hawkins, a handsome and somewhat lost young man, who is going through life in the aftermath of his brother’s suicide.

Tyler meets and falls in love Ally Craig, played by Lost’s Emilie de Ravin, a kindred spirit whose life has also been marked by family tragedy.

The film is set in 2001, the significance of which emerges later in the movie.

Although, in his own words, Tyler “starts off with a lot of baggage”, Pattinson rejects suggestions that he’s always drawn to playing the “brooding” types.

“I did do the kind of lighter stuff before Twilight came out and it just so happened that Twilight became so much about him being an archetypal brooding person,” he insists.

“I never thought Tyler was that brooding,” he laughs.

“I hadn’t even heard the word before Twilight. I guess you like to play broken troubled characters because it seems more interesting, especially because I’m not particularly broken and troubled myself.”

As well as being a love story, which features scenes racier than Twilight fans will be used to seeing their heartthrob in, Remember Me is the tale of Tyler’s frustrations with his father Charles, a wealthy and powerful businessman played by Pierce Brosnan.

Pattinson is full of praise for his “very, very charming” screen dad.

“As soon as you meet him he’s very, very charismatic and Charles on the page is someone who’s very domineering and quite a negative character.

“Pierce, just by being Pierce, kind of changed all that, which was great and made it a much more interesting relationship.”

Tyler also has a touching relationship with his 11-year-old sister Caroline, played by Ruby Jerins.

Although he only has two older sisters himself (“I think I always wanted a younger sibling – not that I have anything against my sisters!”), Pattinson credits the young actress for making their closeness believable.

“It’s very easy to do anything with her. You just look at her and you know what to do immediately.”

Tyler gets into a few punch-ups in the film, clashing on more than one occasion with Ally’s dad, played by Adaptation’s Chris Cooper.

But Pattinson is typically self-effacing when describing his scenes with “a big stunt guy”.

“I hit with what I thought was my full strength. I hit his face about four times. And every time I was like ’I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ and he was like ’it’s fine. It didn’t really hurt.’ That was kind of an ego deflator.”

He admits he hasn’t been in a fight in real life “for a long time”.

“I’m too scared. I think if I got into a fight now someone would just kill me,” he says, prompting laughter from the room.

“I liked a lot of the rebelliousness and audacity of the character. It was kind of a fantasy of myself. Like ’Yeah, I’m the type of guy who randomly gets into fights. I do it all the time’.”

“I don’t. I’m not really,” he quickly adds.

Pattinson was first linked to Remember Me before he was a household name, and the film’s producers are thankful his new-found stardom didn’t turn him off the project.

In fact, an executive producer credit for the actor is testament to his passion for the movie.

Judging by the hordes of screaming girls who turned out to catch a glimpse of the heartthrob at the premiere, the film has a ready-made audience in Twilight’s huge fanbase.

And while Pattinson acknowledges his previous work, and that of de Ravin, will attract more publicity for the film, he refuses to worry about how fans will receive it.

“Obviously you hope people like things but I think if you start doing stuff to please a certain audience then you’re going in the wrong direction,” he says.

“I mean, you don’t even know the people you’re trying to please, especially if you’re trying to please whole swathes of people.”

He laughs before adding: “I hope they like it.”

Remember Me is released on Friday April 2

EXTRA TIME – ROBERT PATTINSON

Robert Pattinson started acting in local drama group, the Barnes Theatre Club, where he took part in a production of Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

He played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire.

In Remember Me, he found his American accent came easily from just reading the script, although he didn’t consciously affect a New York one. “I’ve spent a bit of time in New York and just try and pick up on how people speak,” he says. “I don’t know where my accent is now. I wouldn’t say I had a specific London accent any more.”

He has a “very, very close knit” set of friends, the same ones he’s had since he was 12.

He has no particular heroes other than his family. “They’re great people and my parents are great parents and they brought me up very well, I think. That’s about all the heroes I’ve had.

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